Eba & Egg: A Hatch Trip Review

Reaction-based games almost always provide an addictive gameplay eggsperience. However, is Eba & Egg: A Hatch Trip as habit-forming as it is adorable? Time to charge up your GamePad, let's roll!

I'm ready to roll for sure!

Eba & Egg: A Hatch Trip seems like your average endless runner at first. You basically move to the right perpetually and jump out of harm's way while collecting coloured orbs for points. Where it differentiates itself from its contemporaries is the fact that you control both Eba and the Egg simultaneously. Obviously, Eba is usually on the egg so if you jump as the egg then both will jump together. However, if you jump as Eba then she may find herself on her own path as the Egg keeps rolling underneath. Whenever this happens, you have to look for danger on both paths and tap the two buttons respectively to ensure both parties remain unharmed. This fresh dynamic is handled eggcellently and it makes achieving high scores and progressing through the campaign a very satisfying yet challenging endeavor.

Another aspect of Eba & Egg: A Hatch Trip that impressed me is its cute-as-a-button visuals. The stages themselves are pixel-perfect with foregrounds that stand out from the backgrounds well which helps keep the gameplay streamlined. Considering there are seven themed worlds that all look unique, this graphical style stays enjoyable from start to finish. You'll find yourself running through woods, plains, springs, a winter forest, a desert, a coast, and the highlands. That's quite an impressive journey for such a little chick! On top of this, the music is just as adorable with gentle piano melodies and delightful upbeat rhythms that'll keep your toes tapping.

It's late, Eba; shouldn't you be going to bed?

As I've mentioned above, you get to travel to seven distinct locations. Each one of these contains four stages that can take anywhere from one to five minutes (depending on your skill level). Therefore, the campaign is decently long for an endless runner. Each stage keeps track of your high score and a corresponding grade so replaying stages to outdo your previous efforts can be a lot of fun. There are checkpoints scattered around but every time you get snagged by a hazard, your score will decrease a bit so the key to achieving greatness is to play through each stage in one run while collecting as many orbs as possible. Unfortunately, the replay value entirely depends on your willingness to achieve high scores. I wish there were collectibles or a list of challenges as well.

I don't really have much negative to say about Eba & Egg: A Hatch Trip but there is a couple of areas that could use improvement. Firstly, the gameplay is rather simplistic. Even though there are a handful of mechanics that get introduced like switches that make bridges appear and jelly that you can bounce off; you're still just jumping to avoid hazards. In other words, the gameplay could have used even more complexities as the campaign progressed. Finally, I noticed plenty of moments when the frame rate was herky jerky which was quite disorienting. It was never terrible but enough that I missed the odd jump. In the end, if Eba & Egg ran a bit smoother and the simple gameplay evolved more than it does then this would be up there with the best in the genre.

I wonder if bouncing off mounds of jelly is as fun as it looks...

After all is said and done, I'm very impressed with Eba & Egg: A Hatch Trip. The unique and enjoyable spin on the endless runner formula will surely make genre fans have an eggstremely fun time.

+ Fresh spin on the endless runner where you control two things at once